Abstract
Labour is central to capitalism and agrarian change: as the reproductive labour that sustains social life and provides workers for sites of production; as the source of surplus value extracted from the labour process and distributed unevenly along commodity chains and across society; and as the wage-labour and petty self-employment that are the primary bases of survival. This chapter argues that it is also the driving force of politics. Social antagonisms between capital and labour play out in homes, workplaces, neighbourhoods and ‘public’ institutions; in sites of natural resource appropriation; and amongst ideological struggles over consciousness of possibilities for change.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Handbook on Critical Agrarian Studies |
| Editors | Haroon Akram-Lodhi, Kristina Dietz, Bettina Engels, Ben McKay |
| Place of Publication | Cheltenham |
| Publisher | Edward Elgar Publishing |
| Publication status | Published - 2021 |
Keywords
- Social reproduction, labour process, exploitation, dispossession, capital, consciousness.